


coming from afar & reaching for the stars

by SafelyCapricious



Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [14]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkwardness, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, Sakura just needs to take a goddamn nap, Sleep Deprivation, Team Taka comes to Konoha, Uchiha Sasuke Returns to Konoha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27016789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: It had been two weeks since the trial.Two weeks since Sasuke had been given the choice of surrendering his eyes and being allowed to leave, or being stuck for five years without ever being allowed to leave the village. He had chosen the later.And Sakura isn't avoiding him on purpose, but it's still happening and she's kind of okay with it.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Sai, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto
Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950148
Comments: 18
Kudos: 211





	coming from afar & reaching for the stars

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Ghetto Superstar by Pras ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> This is a "Sasuke came back earlier than in canon, with his Sound team" story. This was also originally written like eight years ago. But I've got a board meeting I need to be leaving for in like no time so this is what ya'll are getting for fictober today. Fuck it. Gonna go with Snake for the fictober prompt I guess? Whatever, it counts. 
> 
> Day 14 we're still doing this ~~kind of~~

It had been two weeks since the trial.

Two weeks since Sasuke had been given the choice of surrendering his eyes and being allowed to leave, or being stuck for five years without ever being allowed to leave the village. He had chosen the later.

There were a number of additional agreements and addendum's, but she hadn’t had time to find out what they were at the time of the trial -- she only stayed to hear the verdict and his choice.

Naruto had told her later that one of the agreements included that he wasn’t allowed to go up in ranks at all over those five years -- which meant that he was going to stay a genin until he was at least twenty-three. Sakura, who is already a special jounin and currently working towards getting standard jounin status, could only imagine how that rankled the boy.

(Though he was hardly a boy anymore -- Ino and Sakura had been walking by the gates on that fateful day that Naruto came back, followed by -- not dragging! -- Sasuke and three other individuals who they would later learn was his current ‘team’. Ino had whistled and commented that it was unfortunate he was a crazy asshole, because he just kept getting better looking. Sakura had, naturally, agreed, though internally.)

It had been two weeks since the trial, and Sakura hadn’t had a moment to breathe since she’d stolen away to watch the verdict and choice. She hadn’t even had enough time to do that much, but Nanaha had been nice enough to watch her lab for her at the time so she could. She still needed to buy the chunin lunch for that.

Sakura wasn’t sure if Tsunade was keeping her busy on purpose, either so she didn’t have to see her returned teammate or she couldn’t -- or if it really had nothing to do with that and they really did need the work she was doing done yesterday and no one else could do it.

She rather preferred to think it was the former, but was fairly sure it was the latter -- unrelated events had laid out a number of their researchers recently and so they were terribly short staffed both in the hospital and the lab.

She was actually working on three different projects at once (working on creating an antidote for a new poison the mist nins had started using, working on creating a new compound for seduction missions that was waterproof, and trying to figure out how to reproduce a truth serum the ANBU had brought back from somewhere) -- and taking fairly regular shifts at the hospital.

It had been about a week and a half since she’d even been home for more than a new change of clothes and a shower. She’d been sleeping in the on call room and surviving on take out.

There was, however, a light at the end of the tunnel. She’d finally figured out what the mystery compound in the mist poison was, so now she just had to get the right ratio for the antidote, she’d finally found away to waterproof the liquids that wasn’t giving those exposed to it hives and that would break down with a special soap, and her last test of the truth serum had been very promising, if not quite right.

Which meant that she could spare a little of time that night -- especially as the antidotes she was trying needed to react on their own for two hours, there was a piece of pig skin coated in the new waterproof seduction liquid in the shower and she was going to leave it there all night to see how much washed away, and she had to wait another hour to add the next ingredient to her newest batch of serum.

This was very good news, not just in general but specifically because that night Ino was throwing a Christmas party and had told her pink haired friend that if she didn’t at least make an appearance she would hunt her down. And a drunk Ino (because by the time she got around to hunting her down she was sure to be) in her lab was a terrible image.

She didn’t bother to get dressed up, though she knew most of the crowd would be. She was just there to make an appearance -- and her loose fitting black pants, the mednin skirt and her long sleeved red top weren’t dressy, but they would do the trick. The only attempt she’d made to look nice was to retie her hair in a pony tail as she walked to the party, and to remove her lab coat.

The party was taking place in a house that didn’t, in fact, belong to Ino -- despite it being “Ino’s Christmas Party!” Which a sign out front loudly proclaimed. The house belonged to Chouji, who was either the most tolerant ninja in the world or being blackmailed to let Ino have a party in his house. She’d have to catch up with him sometime -- when she had free time again.

The party was clearly in full swing by the time she got there. She tried to peer over the crowd to look for her blond friend, found that she didn’t have the height to pull that off and looked for a chair. When none of those could be found that weren’t occupied she huffed, then started to maneuver through the crowd. She pushed her sleeves up and tugged the zipper on her top down -- it may have been the middle of a Fire Country winter outside, but it was like a sauna in the house, due to all the bodies crowded in.

She finally, finally!, found a familiar face through the crowd, and though it wasn’t who she was looking for, he at least had height on her and could maybe find her other blond friend. When she got closer to him she punched his arm to distract him from whoever he was talking to -- she had bigger fish to fry right now.

He turned around and pulled her into an over enthusiastic hug that she laughed into, “Sakura! You made it!”

She grinned but shook her head, “I’m not really here, Naruto. I’m just here to say ‘Hi’ to Ino so she doesn’t hunt me down and wreck my lab.”

Naruto’s pout was expected, “But Sakura, it’s a Christmas party! You can take the night off! I’ll kidnap you so you can’t leave and go back to boring work!”

“I can’t stay -- I’d have to explain to Tsunade why the three new mixtures weren’t done -- and if you hold me captive so that I’m not able to finish these stupid projects that have kept me away from my own bed for nearly two weeks…” She let her voice trail off warningly, then she remembered it was Naruto she was talking to and she finished the threat, “I will castrate you witha pair of pliers. Are we clear?”

He frowned and rubbed her back lightly, “Poor Sakura, Baa-sama’s been working you too hard again hasn’t she?”

Resting her forehead on his shoulder she nodded, he rubbed her back a little more vigorously.

“I’ll stop by tomorrow and give you a massage, m’kay?”

She looked up at him and kissed his cheek, “Marry me and have my babies.”

“I don’t think I could hold the sexy-no-jutsu that long,” he looked contemplative and she laughed.

“Yeah, and Hinata would probably kill me for it. How ‘bout you just help me find Ino so I can leave, give me a massage tomorrow and when I’m done with all of this I’ll take a day and we can do some training and I’ll pay for lunch?”

He saluted, “Yes Ma’am!” and went up on his toes to look out over the crowd.

She finally bothered to turn to look at who he had been talking to, intending to apologize for stealing his attention if they were still there.

They were still there, and she felt her heart do that uncomfortable change in pace that it always seemed to leap to whenever she saw him. She had never expected to see him here -- it just wasn’t really his scene. She wondered if, perhaps, the redhead who was clinging to his arm was the reason he was there. But that was, honestly, none of her business. She’d already made the vow to herself to treat him like everyone else.

So she smiled, and though it was a little forced it wasn’t the sort of thing he was likely to notice, and she apologized for stealing Naruto, like she’d intended. “Hey, sorry I had to steal Naruto for a moment, once we find Ino I’m sure he’ll be all yours again.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything, and so her eyes returned to the crowd. Sakura wondered if he thought she was avoiding him -- but that was wishful thinking, he probably didn’t think of her at all. She wondered more seriously if she would’ve been avoiding him if she actually had the time to purposefully do that. She decided that she very well might be.

Naruto came down off his toes and shrugged, “I can’t see her anywhere.”

“Her who?” Came the rather emotionless reply, and with a grin Sakura turned towards her socially inept teammate (though some days that seemed to apply to all of them) and leaned up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. It was all part of her ‘get Sai used to normal social behavior’ plan. She had a schedule. It was color coded.

“Ino. I’m looking for her, have you seen her?”

He tilted his head and looked her over slowly, a frown in his eyes as his mouth curved into a giant smile, “You’re looking very nice tonight.”

Sakura grimaced, wishing suddenly, that she wasn’t aware that Sai had taken the lesson of ‘lie to girls about how they look’ quite so seriously, but with a sigh she had to admit he was right, she did look like hell. At least he normally told her she looked ugly, that was somehow an ego boost. (Though having to listen to Naruto chant “Sai thinks I have a big d--” was more then she ever wanted to experience again, when he’d learned the truth.) So she just shrugged, “Yeah, I know. But have you seen Ino?”

He considered, “Yes. She and the shinobi with the senbon went into a closet together. They were giggling. I do not understand.”

Blowing out a breath of air she shook her head, “That’s going to be a disaster -- I am not going in there. Sai, once they come out -- don’t you dare go in there -- can you tell Ino I was here?”

He nodded and looked to the side, finally noticing Sasuke and the redhead (Sakura really needed to learn her name -- Krin? Karin? Karen? Kin? Kim? It was something like that. She really needed to figure it out. But not today.)His head tilted to the side, and his smile went stupidly fake, “Uchiha. I don’t know your last name. Hello.”

Sakura tried not to grin, and had to cover her mouth with her hand to stop it. Sai’s avid dislike of their former teammate had become oddly charming to her — even if she really shouldn’t have been encouraging it.

Naruto snickered and opened his mouth, probably to say something insulting that would derail them all, so Sakura covered it with a hand. “Tell you what Sai, you pick up a bento from me and I’ll have lunch with you and explain anything that happened at this party that you didn’t understand, okay? Don’t ask Naruto, he will give you bad information that will probably get you slapped. Slapped more then usual, I mean.”

He nodded, thoughtful, “Okay.” And his lips turned up the smallest amount, in what she knew was an actual smile.

She grinned, sincerely, back. “Great. So make sure Ino knows I’m here, don’t forget! I have to go back and test some things, you guys have a great time. I’ll see you both tomorrow.” She leaned up to kiss Naruto’s cheek, whose mouth she was still covering, then did the same to Sai. She was about to just leave, but she hesitated and glanced at Sasuke, “I’m glad you’re back,” and because she kept telling herself to just treat him like everyone else she offered another fake smile, “we could spar sometime when I’m free.”

She didn’t wait for any type of acknowledgement before starting through the crowd back to the door. Her ear could just barely pick up Naruto’s laugh and cry over the noise of the mass of people, “Haha! Sakura’s gonna beat your ass!”

Laughing and shaking her head she made her way out of the house, finally, and headed back to her lab and another few hours of work.

* * * *

She managed to get nearly five hours of sleep, in about six fifty minute chunks. It was now around seven in the morning, and she had two hours to kill -- she considered going back to sleep but decided that soaking in her tub would be a far better use of her time. So she locked up her lab and headed out.

Outside the hospital she was more then a little surprised to find Sasuke waiting. She assumed he was there for something else and just waved as she went past -- but he matched paces with her. She frowned and covered a yawn, kind of amused that apparently this early in the morning even her heart was too tired to try to jump in his presence. As the silence stretched on she finally decided to break it, “I hope you didn’t think I meant we should spar today. I really don’t have the time.”

She saw him nod out of the corner of her eye, but he didn’t otherwise respond, so she gave a mental shrug and just kept walking to her home, still confused about why he was there.

They were nearly to her apartment building when he finally spoke. “Are you done?”

She shook her head, “Uh, no. Hopefully soon though.”

“What are you working on?” He wasn’t even looking at her -- and she was starting to wonder if she’d mixed something wrong and was, in fact, not walking home but lying in the wreckage of her lab with some sort of concussion and poisoning, hallucinating this entire thing.

“Just some new compounds.” Her confusion, she was sure, showed in her voice. As she finally stopped since she was at the entrance to her building.

He turned and looked at her, “You’re not willing to tell me what they are because you think I’ll betray you again.”

Her confusion just grew and she shook her head, “No, not really. It’s just not all that interesting for anyone but, well, me. Besides, knowing what I’m working on won’t do anyone any good without the actual compounds and all of my notes.”

He considered her and she just stared, baffled, “Your other teammates know what you’re working on.”

She shrugged, helpless, “I don’t know if they know -- I ranted to them about it, which I’m sure was pretty annoying, so I’m not sure how much information they actually retained. Does it matter?”

She saw him flinch, barely, when she said ‘annoying’, and she was suddenly both more confused and more tired than she could deal with. So she didn’t wait for him to say anything else, “Look, Sasuke, my head is pounding, I’m exhausted, all I want to do it take a bath and have a bowl of soup. I don’t understand why you’re asking me these things -- why you care, and I just can’t deal with this right now. So whatever the point of this is, just, get to it when I have some free time and I’ll be willing to play twenty not questions with you, okay?” And with that she turned on her heel and walked into the entrance to her building.

By the time Sasuke had followed her up -- coming in through the window since her door had been locked behind her, she was already in her bathrobe and had the tub filling with bubbles and hot water -- and a pot of hot water on for some tea.

She couldn’t even work up the energy to be surprised. She just gabbed another mug from over her sink and listened to the various sounds of water to make sure the tub didn’t overflow and her tea didn’t boil. Once the hot water for the tea was about to boil she poured two cups, stirred some honey into hers, turned of her stove and turned around.

Walking towards the bathroom she handed off the unsweetened cup to him and went into the bathroom, leaving the door cracked. Once she’d settled into the hot water she rested her head on the back of the tub and just relaxed for a long moment before asking, conversationally, “So, have you always been this socially inappropriate and I just never noticed before or is this something you picked up from Orochimaru or your new team or hell, all of the places and people I don’t want to know about?”

There was the sound of him settling in her hallway, she wondered if he was even going to speak and was starting to drift off when he finally did. “You didn’t kick me out.”

She rolled her closed eyes, “No. I didn’t _kick_ you out, because then I’d have a hole in my wall and I wouldn’t be able to take my bath.”

Sipping her cooling tea, she waited. This time he didn’t last nearly as long before speaking. “You’re different.”

“I would hope so.” She couldn’t help but scoff, she still didn’t understand why he was there -- why he wasn’t letting her rest, and it was really obnoxious. No, not obnoxious. Annoying. She grinned at the thought of what he’d do if she called him that.

He continued to be silent, so with a shrug she settled back in and decided to ignore his existence for as long as she could. It turned out to be quite a while. She woke from a twenty minute nap in her cooling bath, added some more hot water, washed her hair, dried off and donned her bath robe. She’d honestly thought he’d left, but no, he was still sitting there in her hallway.

She paused, met his gaze and arched an eyebrow, “No, seriously, have you always been this socially awkward? Do I just bring it out in people? Because between you and Sai and Naruto, and hell, Yamato and Kakashi, I think I have more than my fair share of awkwardness. Are you guys in some sort of competition?”

Shaking her head and walking towards her room to change, she mumbled as she went, “At least you didn’t try to climb in my bathtub.”

He was at her elbow in an instant, she arched an eyebrow, but he held on, “Someone tried to climb in your bath with you?”

She scoffed and shook his grip off, “He didn’t try, he succeeded -- just teleported straight in -- idiot thought since hot springs were bonding he could bond with me in the tub. I got kicked out of that apartment and I’d rather not have to do the same thing here -- I like it here.”

He continued to stand in the middle of her bedroom. She sighed, grabbed the clothes she wanted then headed back to the bathroom to change, since he clearly wasn’t moving.

“Who?”

She scoffed and pulled on her pants from behind the closed bathroom door, “Who do you think? Sai.”

He was gone by the time she exited the bathroom. She rolled her eyes and decided to not think about it until she had some time, ‘cos right then she really needed to get back to her research.

Three hours later, Sai showed up, baring an extra large bento box, and followed by none other than Sasuke.

When she shot Sai a questioning look, he just shrugged, overly large smile in place. So she sighed and settled down to eat, pointing her chopsticks at Sasuke, “We’re not sharing, this is our lunch.”

They then proceeded to ignore him, as Sai asked socially inappropriate questions about the party and they split the bento (Sai would eat just about anything, so she’d trained him to eat the things she didn’t like to, so they could polish off the entire box, though when there was a roll of just fish eggs, it was usually only finished as a competition between the two, as it was one of the few things Sai found he didn’t like -- the little balls got stuck between his teeth and he disliked that.)

**Author's Note:**

> Eventually this is meant to be Sasuke/Sakura, but since it's clearly a ways off and I don't know if we'll ever get there, have some pre friendship for it all. 
> 
> If you wanna chat come bug me on my [writing tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/capriciouswrites).
> 
> As always let me know what you think. Oh, and shout out to the Sakura discord, ya'll are the best! <3


End file.
